Texas health officials’ pleas for help were ignored by CDC as measles cases grew, report says

Officials in Texas scrambled to control the number of measles cases spreading throughout the western part of the state, largely without help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, earlier this year, according to a new report.

Just days after the first measles case was reported in Texas, the Trump administration took office and ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to halt all public communications, according to an email obtained by KFF Health News.

Soon after, the administration began conducting mass layoffs, sending various agencies, including the CDC, into chaos and confusion, several CDC officials told KFF Health News.

When officials in West Texas began reaching out to the CDC for guidance on how to handle the measles outbreak earlier this year, they were apparently met with simple responses or complete silence from a “stressed” agency.

Katherine Wells, the director of public health in Lubbock, Texas, emailed her public health colleagues saying, “My staff feels like we are out here all alone.”

The Independent has asked the CDC for comment.

Even after the administration’s halt on communications ended, CDC scientists said there was “a lot of confusion and non-answers over what communications were allowed.”

Social media communications that were once handled by CDC workers directly suddenly had to be reviewed by HHS, employees told NPR. Two CDC communications employees said, at the time, that fewer than half of their posts were approved for social media.

The CDC never held press briefings on the measles situation and issued short press releases.

As a result, local officials had to rely on advice from doctors and researchers outside of the government.

“The CDC had gone dark,” Terri Burke, the executive director of Immunization Partnership, a Texas nonprofit, told KFF Health News. “We had anticipated a measles outbreak, but we didn’t expect the federal government to be in collapse when it hit.”

It wasn’t until late February, when a six-year-old child died of measles, that a CDC scientist reached out to Wells for the first time and released its first press release on the measles outbreak. In that release, the CDC said vaccine was the most effective way to defend against measles but also endorsed vitamin A administration as a supportive care method.

Health experts were concerned that the CDC and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. advocating for vitamin A could exacerbate the problem of parents delaying vaccine intervention.

Several children were treated for vitamin A toxicity in April.

A CDC scientist told KFF Health News that the department “pressed” for them to insert the vitamin A line into their communications.

Another unnamed CDC official said they were trying to provide scientific-backed information to the public while aligning itself with HHS.

With cases growing throughout the spring, officials in Texas asked the government for federal funding, staffing, and more resources to help fight the outbreak.

In March, the CDC sent epidemiologists to Texas to assist for several weeks.

In April, a senior CDC scientists brought the state’s resource issue to attention at a vaccine advisory panel meeting.

In May, the federal government provided funds to Texas.

“It’s not that the CDC was delinquent,” Georges Benjamin, the director of the American Public Health Association, told KFF Health News. “It’s that they had their hands tied behind their backs.”

Last week, health officials said that the measles outbreak in West Texas had ended. But thousands of people, including children, were likely infected with the potentially deadly disease and it’s likely the country will see more outbreaks, experts say.